Russian law forbids convicted criminals serving a sentence from standing for office.

“As we’ve said before: despite the guilty verdict, the campaign for Navalny to stand in the elections continues. And it will achieve victory,” Leonid Volkov, a close advisor to Mr Navalny, wrote on Twitter after the verdict was read out.

“If you too dislike judges who word-for-word repeat verdicts that have already been found illegal and overturned, come here,” he added in a tweet with a link to the campaign’s website .

Many of Mr Navalny’s supporters hoped the Kremlin would calculate that allowing a genuine opposition figure to stand would lend greater legitimacy to Mr Putin’s eventual victory than a race against the increasingly elderly and ineffective leaders of “systemic” opposition parties.

Wednesday's verdict will be widely seen as a signal that the authorities have decided not to take that risk, although some opposition activists have expressed hope the decision could later be reversed.